


In Flew Enza

by MarianneGreenleaf



Series: The Future is Bright: Paris and Beyond [2]
Category: The Music Man (1962), The Music Man - All Media Types, The Music Man - Willson
Genre: Edwardian era, Gen, Heavy Angst, Inspired by COVID-19, Minor Character Death, Pandemics, Psychological Trauma, Spanish flu, Unpacking emotional baggage, World War I, trouble with a capital t
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25919278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarianneGreenleaf/pseuds/MarianneGreenleaf
Summary: When the Spanish flu epidemic threatens River City, Harold and Marian struggle to convince the perpetually stubborn Mayor Shinn to take decisive action before it's too late.
Relationships: Harold Hill/Marian Paroo, Tommy Djilas/Zaneeta Shinn
Series: The Future is Bright: Paris and Beyond [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/26570
Kudos: 5





	In Flew Enza

**Author's Note:**

> Observing the collectively counterproductive and maladaptive reactions of American citizens and politicians to the COVID-19 public health crisis has provided much food for thought, as well as inspiration for this story. The worryingly coincidental parallels between the ways America failed to adequately address the novel coronavirus and the Spanish flu epidemics that happened a hundred years apart were too striking not to explore, given that Harold and Marian would have experienced the earlier pandemic.
> 
> This fic forms a loose thematic trilogy with [La Belle Époque](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25451278) and [Unflappable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/519997), with In Flew Enza being the third installment. [Old Black Shuck](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20884796/chapters/49643087) is also closely tied to this trilogy, and I’ve made some very slight adjustments to timelines previously indicated in Old Black Shuck and Unflappable, so everything is now consistent. The Globe Gazette provided invaluable information as to actual statistics concerning cases of and deaths from the Spanish flu in Mason City, Iowa, which I tweaked slightly to fit this fanon universe.

_I had a little bird,_  
_Its name was Enza,_  
_I opened the window_  
_In ‘flu’ Enza._  
_~popular children’s jump-rope rhyme, circa 1918_

_We are doomed to repeat history because our studies are brief and our recollections prejudiced._  
_~observation made by MD_Teach on Coronavirus subreddit thread “The 1918 Flu Faded in Our Collective Memory: We Might ‘Forget’ the Coronavirus, Too,” August 13, 2020_

XXX

Nineteen-eighteen was not a year that the River City-ziens remembered fondly. It was bad enough that their precious sons had been drafted to fight at the European Front half a world away – and in a war that most Americans had been opposed to getting involved in since 1914. And when the first wave of a new and deadly influenza invaded the United States in the spring of that year, their disgruntlement only deepened.

With no vaccine to protect against this noxious malady, and with the discovery of the first true antibiotic still a solid decade away, control efforts were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which were applied unevenly in a haphazard patchwork fashion. And so the River City-ziens knew as little as anybody else about how to treat or even prevent this fearsome flu: that is to say, they knew something of germ theory and basic hygiene, but nothing of cytokine storms, mortality rates, or even the true number of infections. Due to Spain being the only country at the time giving fully honest reports about the nature and severity of its outbreaks, the disease was quickly dubbed the Spanish flu, even though it was later theorized to have originated in France, China, Britain – or even as close to home as Haskell County, Kansas.

But in 1918, all the general populace could feasibly grasp was that their soldiers and young people were dying at a swift and alarming rate, and they were terrified. The Spanish flu struck with unfair and inscrutable chanciness across the country, which the newspapers detailed with the same jingoistic and lurid sensationalism as they had puffed up the Spanish-American War: one family lost a six-month-old but no one else even got sick; an expectant mother with three young children died suddenly and violently; another family of seven was almost completely decimated, with only a single survivor remaining after the disease ravaged their household. These stories, and hundreds more like them, filled the papers and made the people even more frightened than they already were. Given the staunch anti-Kraut sentiment due to the war, a fair few Americans – including some River City-ziens – deemed this epidemic the German flu, and the more suspicious-minded even attributed this plague to the German-owned company Bayer deliberately poisoning its aspirin.

But Harold Hill did not blame the Germans for the flu. While he was no pacifist despite his uneasiness with the war fever that had come into fashion of late, he knew how ridiculously easy it was to stoke a moral panic in the populace in order to manipulate them toward a certain end. While this contagion was nothing to sneeze at, all the reporting and rumor surrounding it bore the hallmarks of just such an insidious phenomenon. And the pro-war politicians weren’t the only ones benefiting from this shift in public opinion: the music professor howled derisively every time he came across the full-page newspaper ads for Vick’s Vaporub, with their specious claims that this concoction miraculously threw off the germs of the flu.

Harold was no doctor, but he certainly recognized bombastic rhetoric when he saw it. Snake oil salesmen were certainly having a field day with this epidemic! He couldn’t help wondering, as he always did whenever he encountered such outrageous salesmanship, whether he would’ve gotten in on this racket if he’d never turned over a new leaf. After six years of running a legitimate business, enjoying the happiest of marriages, and being the father of two dearly-loved daughters, the notion of engaging in this kind of chicanery downright repulsed him. He liked to think he would’ve had _some_ scruples even if he’d remained a swindler – while he’d had no compunction wheedling people’s money out of their boodle bags on false pretenses, he never could stomach the idea of making a fortune at the expense of actual lives.

If Harold was grateful that he reformed in time to prevent committing such an egregious transgression against humanity, he was doubly grateful to be wedded to a woman who was as sensible and discerning as he was. When the Spanish flu broke out two towns away in late August, Marian insisted on their maintaining a meticulous hygiene regimen and cleaning everything even more diligently than she already did. When it reached the next town over in early September, she denied any patron with visible illness entrance to Madison Public Library until they were demonstrably recovered. And when River City reported its very first case mid-month, she limited the hours of operation at the library and insisted that all the Hills wear face coverings outside of the house.

The librarian was not the least bit concerned that her actions would be unpopular, as by that point she’d acquired enough social standing and respect as an educated authority that many ladies in River City were swayed into following her example with minimal fuss – including, thank heavens, her stubborn but practical Irish mother. Her assistant Jane Peabody also heeded this model, as she’d been a sickly child with a delicate constitution, so she took the additional precaution of remaining in her room at the boarding house when she wasn’t working at the library.

However, the librarian did not make as thorough inroads in convincing the most prominent River City-ziens to take preventative measures as either she or Harold would have liked. The Events Committee was divided almost evenly down the middle as to whether such interventions were warranted. Marian Hill, Ethel Washburn, Maud Dunlop, and Avis Grubb wore masks at meetings, while Alma Hix and Eunice Squires did not. And even though Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn continued to swallow her daily clove of garlic, she also opted not to cover her face. As the mayor’s wife, her decision carried a great deal of clout and worsened the divisions that were steadily growing in River City. But in true Iowa stubborn fashion, the ladies tacitly agreed not to discuss this matter at meetings, leaving the donning of face coverings to each woman’s individual conscience. And so the atmosphere between them was strained but civil, especially as October approached and flu season started to ramp up in earnest.

But for those who were deeply invested in the status quo and had much to lose in this upheaval, it was not so easy for them to change their beliefs or behavior to adjust to this new threat. The River City-ziens were already feeling the pinch of wartime shortages and compulsory rationing, so all this extra precaution and disinfecting was too much additional inconvenience for them to swallow. However, whereas the townspeople saw the flu as an annoying disruption of their normal habits and economic livelihoods, Harold saw failure to adapt. And it greatly irked him.

Though the music professor had happily traded independence for security when he fell in love with the librarian, he hadn’t grown soft and stupid and complacent – he would never forget his instinct to _survive_ , first and foremost. And he knew from long experience that disease was every bit as merciless and unreasonable as a frenzied mob that was hell-bent on retribution for being cheated. Pestilence could not be persuaded to leave people alone by pathos or principle; it did not care a whit what anyone’s needs or wishes or reasons for doing things were.

The Spanish flu wasn’t something a man could arrange to suit his needs and desires, tame with rhetoric, or avoid through denial. It wasn’t a landlord he could beg for an extra week to pay rent. It wasn’t a boss he could request a day off from. And it certainly wasn’t a pliant crowd he could wheedle into doing his bidding! As cumbersome as it was to halt public assemblies, limit social gatherings, remain in quarantine, wear face coverings, and uphold scrupulous hygiene, these weren’t obligations a town could shirk if they wanted to weather such catastrophe with minimal loss. And for Harold Gregory Hill, a man who’d grappled with a great deal of hardship in his determination to endure, it boiled down to one simple outcome: either River City stopped the spread of influenza in its tracks, or it didn’t.

XXX

In a stunning show of competence and foresight, Mayor Shinn recognized the danger right away, mandated the wearing of masks in public, ordered mass quarantines, and closed all public places and shops, effective immediately… or so Harold dearly wished. But Mister Mayor did absolutely nothing of the sort. Instead, the eminent politician insisted on business as usual and in quarantining only the gravely ill. To compound this foolishness, he also proclaimed there would be a military parade during the first week of October, and that it must be as grand and ostentatious as could be arranged on such short notice. For he had gotten a news bulletin encouraging this madness from President Woodrow Wilson himself, who was strongly recommending such public events to bolster morale for the war, and so had made this imprudent directive to governors and mayors all across the nation.

“No,” Harold said firmly, when Mayor Shinn asked him to lead the boys’ band at the parade. “I won’t do it.”

The music professor had been summoned to City Hall specifically for this request, and the mayor was already in a foul mood with him, as he’d scowled openly when Harold walked into his office wearing a mask.

“And why not?” Mayor Shinn asked querulously, his frown deepening even more. “The exorbitant fee you already charge for your services isn’t high enough? The struggling taxpayers need to make it more worth your while, when they can ill afford to do so? In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a war going on, and we need all decks on hand to win it!”

Normally, Harold didn’t care what selfish or dubious motivations other people ascribed to his actions – especially as they occasionally had a fair point. But after six years of giving everything he had to River City and putting them on the map musically, he was downright insulted by the mayor’s intimation that he was primarily in it for the money. Especially as he’d taken the initiative all on his own to reduce the emporium’s prices for instruments, lessons, and performances as soon as America had officially declared war. It was no secret that his business was barely breaking even at this point, just like so many other businesses in town, and the mayor had the nerve to accuse him of profiteering?

But even though Harold was genuinely affronted by this low blow, he wasn’t going to waste his time attempting to convince the mayor of the purity of his intentions, as that was one argument he knew even he could never win. So he simply replied, “I wouldn’t do it for all the money in the world. In case _you_ haven’t noticed, there’s a deadly epidemic going around. So in light of that indisputable fact, I’m planning to shut down the emporium until the danger passes – effective immediately.”

The mayor, who’d already been red in the face with fury, turned downright purple. “You – you – _traitor_!” he sputtered. “We should have tarred and feathered you and ridden you out of town on a rail long ago!”

Even Harold had to flinch at such uncontrolled – and undeserved – fury being aimed squarely in his direction. And though he felt duty-bound to at least try to get the mayor to see sense despite the stinging personal wounds that urged him to leave this infuriatingly obstinate and addle-pated fool to his own destruction, there was no productive conversation that could be had right now. Mayor Shinn needed time to cool down, and frankly, so did Harold.

“Good day, Mister Mayor,” he said curtly with a tip of his hat. “We’ll talk more about this later.”

As the music professor still excelled at quick and decorous exits, he slipped out of the office before the apoplectic mayor could get in another word.

XXX

Marian had never seen Harold so angry. It was a good thing the girls were with their grandmother that afternoon, as she actually jumped and dropped her sewing when her husband slammed open the front door and fumed, “Leave it to Mayor Shinn! If there’s an issue that requires a position to be taken, he’s sure to be on the wrong side of it!”

The librarian winced in disappointed sympathy. Harold had told her all about the ill-advised request the mayor had made of him yesterday, and she wholeheartedly supported his planned course of action to go back to City Hall for a second conversation today, because if there was anyone who could stem this madness, it was her silver-tongued husband. “I take it your attempt to convince Mayor Shinn to call off the parade didn’t go well?”

Harold ran his hands through his disheveled curls as he continued to pace the length of their front hall like an agitated tiger trapped in a cage at the circus. “He wouldn’t even talk to me unless I removed my mask! When I refused to do that _or_ leave until he’d at least had the decency to hear me out, he had me thrown out of his office – literally!”

“Well, no one can say you didn’t try your hardest,” Marian consoled, though she didn’t attempt to touch or even approach him when he was this irate. Life had taught her long before she met him that it was wisest to let such intense anger burn out on its own. “You did all you could possibly do, Harold. Whatever happens now, none of it will be your fault.”

His eyes locked with hers, and she steeled herself to gaze into the full measure of his fury without flinching. “Look, my dear little librarian, I know you mean well, but it really doesn’t matter that I tried my hardest. This epidemic isn’t going to be stopped by good intentions. I _failed_ , Marian. I failed to win the most important persuasive attempt I’ve ever made in my life.” He crumpled his mask in his fist and threw it at the wall. “What _good_ is it that I was given a silver tongue if I couldn’t stop this cockamamie parade from happening? The Spanish flu is going to ravage River City, and I can’t do a goddamn thing to stop it – ” His voice caught in his throat, his shoulders heaved, and his knees buckled as he started to break down completely.

Marian caught him before he hit the floor. As he was heavier than her, she ended up sinking down with him, but the point had been made: she would always be right by his side, even when he was beside himself. It wasn’t the first time in recent history that Harold had broken down over great matters that he couldn’t arrange to his liking. She knew full well he was already suffering a crisis of conscience for his role in selling the war to River City’s sons – particularly to Winthrop, who’d sneaked off to the front as a result of all those grand speeches and parades, though he was still underage. She also knew that the music professor was a man who was used to having an enviable sense of persuasion over others that most people could only dream of, so the sheer loss of this control – especially when it really mattered – would be extremely disconcerting. And so, realizing that there was absolutely nothing she could say to assuage this most painful of personal defeats or even make it hurt less, she simply petted her husband and made soothing noises as he clung to her and soaked her shoulder with his tears.

“I just don’t understand,” Harold said sullenly, once he’d calmed down. “I mean, I _do_ understand why Mayor Shinn’s such a stubborn fool, but I can’t understand why I can’t convince him to do what he ought!”

Marian sighed. “You know as well as I do that Mayor Shinn never completely trusted you. No matter how much you’ve made amends, and no matter how much you’ve brought to River City, he probably never will.” She laughed bleakly. “If you were the head of the Anti-Mask League, he’d be calling for a quarantine right now!”

It did her heart good to hear him let out a genuine laugh at that – so much that she didn’t even begrudge him the use of profanity even in the privacy of her mind when he opined, “Mayor Shinn is so damn ignorant that he must live his life in a perpetual state of astonishment!” But he quickly sobered and said grimly, “You know, I did seriously consider adopting that angle to get him to cancel the parade. But it’s too well known that you and I were on the vanguard of prevention, so even I couldn’t have sold such an unbelievable change of heart. Even if I could, it would have been too dangerous to stomach doing. I’m not willing to die simply to make a point. And I refuse to put you or the girls in harm’s way, either. There are some risks that are too big to take – even if they would be for the greater good.”

Marian nodded, ruminating on all the work she’d personally put in to halt this epidemic. In truth, she was just as livid as Harold, though now was not the time to go into it, as they were still dealing with the aftermath of his agitation. While cases of Spanish flu had thankfully remained low in River City, they were sure to explode after this reckless parade. And so, with no time to lose, she had called an emergency meeting with the trustees that very morning in order to present her plan of closing Madison Public Library, effective immediately. The library would not reopen until at least two weeks after the parade, depending on the severity of the resulting outbreak, and the trustees were not happy about her decision.

Indeed, they were irrevocably divided on the matter, just like everyone else in this darn town: some trustees praised her for her prudence and decisiveness, some trustees denounced her as being overly hysterical, and the rest were wishy washy fools who muddled somewhere in between the two positions, sputtering as uselessly and uncomprehendingly as a goldfish removed from its bowl. One trustee even went so far as to condemn her husband for putting such overwrought ideas into her impressionable feminine head, to which she issued the blistering retort: when, in all the history of their knowing her, did she ever allow _any_ man to dictate her actions or even her opinions?

Fortunately, this shut the rude fellow up, though he continued to glower and grumble in his seat. Marian completely ignored his childish pouting, as much as it rankled her. She could afford to be stubborn and even recalcitrant – no matter what harsh words they hurled at her or discourteous insinuations they made as to her competency, they knew as well as she did that they couldn’t easily fire her. If they did, she’d take every single one of Mr. Madison’s books with her, which they couldn’t afford to replace, especially not during wartime. And there was no one else in River City they could prevail upon to run the library in her stead, as Jane Edna Peabody stood staunchly behind the librarian, and had submitted a letter to the trustees proclaiming her ringing endorsement of library closure. So not only did the librarian _not_ back down from her position, she further informed the trustees that she had told them her plan as a courtesy, not as a matter to be put to vote.

By now, Harold had recovered enough of his composure that he was once again attuned to her unrest. He lifted his head from the crook of her neck and kissed her now-disheveled curls. “You’ve grown awfully quiet – what’s eating you, darling?”

Marian let out a long sigh. “I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise, but the trustees were just as thrilled by my insistence on closing the library as Mayor Shinn was about the idea of calling off the parade. However, unlike the mayor, they can’t do anything about it. So we won there, at least.”

Harold likewise sighed, his face still buried in her hair. “I suppose all we can do at this point is savor the little victories.”

“Indeed,” she agreed. Never one to worry overmuch about a situation when she could do something practical about it, Marian decided, “Now that we’ve closed the library and the emporium, I think it’s time we isolate ourselves until this epidemic passes. I’ll bring the girls home straightaway and shop for any remaining provisions we’ll need for the next few weeks. We’ll have no income right now, but we should have plenty of savings to live on in the interval, as long as we’re careful.” Her arms tightened around her husband, and now it was she who sought comfort and reassurance, which he readily provided with ample kisses and caresses.

XXX

Although the Hills were now in self-imposed quarantine, gossip continued to trickle through the grapevine to them. While Harold and Marian did not allow guests in their home, they consented to having conversations with friends and acquaintances outside on the front porch and at the gate, though they took care to wear masks and not stand too close to their visitors. While the librarian was initially apprehensive about engaging in such interactions, the music professor convinced her of the necessity of maintaining these social ties, as it was imperative for them to remain aware of overall public sentiment and what was going on in town, despite their withdrawal from all major activities.

Unsurprisingly, the news of Harold’s public break with Mayor Shinn and the shutdown of both the library and the emporium rapidly became common knowledge – gossip still spread faster than disease – and the powder keg of tension in town exploded. While the music professor could not persuade the mayor to cancel the parade, his refusal to lead the boys’ band was extremely effective in diminishing general interest in the event, as there was no one else could fill his larger-than-life shoes, even had they wanted to. So for the first time since Harold Hill came to River City, there would be no music at a town celebration.

The boys’ band and its music professor had become such fixtures at these patriotic assemblies that their absence was utterly unthinkable, no matter what one’s position was regarding the Spanish flu. Harold’s defection caused a huge rift in River City, and each and every townsperson was finally forced to choose his or her side. When the day of the cursed parade finally rolled around, the music professor and librarian estimated, based on their outdoor exchanges, that River City was split almost two-thirds to one on the matter, with the majority on the side of caution and prevention.

Harold hoped it would be enough to curtail disaster. He _prayed_ it would be enough, as he’d never dared to petition the Almighty before.

XXX

Two weeks to the day after the parade was held, Harold and Marian’s morning was interrupted by a frantic pounding at their door.

Exchanging a glance that was both worried and knowing, the music professor and librarian put their daughters in the nursery, donned their masks, and answered the door.

Indeed, Mayor Shinn stood forlornly on their stoop, looking more sheepish, subdued, and terrified than Harold had ever seen him. And he was actually wearing a mask!

Still, Harold was not inclined to offer any mercy. Not yet. Narrowing his eyes and adopting a cold and disinterested tone, he asked, “Can I help you?”

“Gracie’s sick,” the mayor said gruffly. “She might not pull through. Eulalie’s beside herself – she’s threatening divorce if our girl dies. Half the school board has been struck down, and Jacey Squires is on his deathbed. You were right, Hill. We should never have had that parade.”

While Harold was admittedly gratified to see the mayor so humbled after making such a ghastly error in judgment, it was sorely tempting to abandon the man to stew in his own juices. He was even contemplating closing the door in his face until Marian gently nudged him, as if to remind him that the Spanish flu wouldn’t be defeated by self-righteousness, either.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Harold said politely, stepping out onto the front porch. “How’s Zaneeta doing? You didn’t mention her. Is she sick? Is the baby still all right?” The music professor didn’t ask after her husband Tommy, as he was away at the front and frequently sent letters to his mentor as to his health and progress.

The mayor’s shoulders sagged, and he looked positively ancient with regret and humiliation. “Zaneeta’s right as rain. She refused to attend my parade or see me or her mother or sister – she’s stayed holed up at home all this time. Dr. Pyne said she was too delicate to go anywhere in her condition anyhow, Spanish flu or not. That consarned rebellious streak you encouraged all those years ago ended up saving her life.” His voice cracked. “You’ve won, Hill. You’ve won everything. And if you want my job, you could take that, too. At least half the town is demanding my resignation if I don’t stop this flu.”

Harold was aghast. As much as he’d wanted the mayor to admit his terribly pigheaded folly in such a bald-faced manner, the man would be useless if he was too mortified to take a stand and make any more potentially unpopular decisions. While Harold’s dire prediction that the amount of influenza cases in River City would increase after the parade was sadly proven right, the attendance was poor enough that the numbers were still manageably low enough to weather when quarantines were strictly enforced. So they still had time to mitigate the spread of the disease any further, as long as they acted swiftly. River City needed a strong and canny politician to accomplish this, and as talented as Harold was, he was not that man.

“I don’t want your job,” he said firmly. “I’ve got enough on my plate as it is. And I do hope you know that I never wanted to win this way, not at this cost. I warned you what would happen if you had that parade – repeatedly!”

It was a mark of Mayor Shinn’s utter chagrin that instead of getting angry, his shoulders sagged even further, and he closed his eyes as if he wished he could simply melt into the ground. “I know. I’ve sown the wind and made my bed, I’ve reaped the whirlwind and I’m laying in it.” He opened his eyes and stared straight at the music professor, man to man, with the same steely resolve and plainspoken affability that had seen him through two solid decades of leading River City. “Harold – please help me sell this quarantine.”

Harold nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”

“And we’ll pray for Gracie’s and Jacey’s recovery,” Marian added.

XXX

On October 12, 1918, Mayor Shinn declared that all public meetings in River City were cancelled until further notice. This included theaters, churches, dance halls, and schools. Fortunately, the state of Iowa demonstrated similar good sense: around the same time, the Iowa Board of Health quarantined the entire state, forcing the closing of public gatherings regardless of any local mayors’ positions on the matter.

It was indeed the correct decision. By October 14, 30 cases of flu had been reported in River City, although fewer than ten were thought to be serious. By October 19, 150 cases were reported, along with four more deaths. As an additional precautionary measure, the Salvation Army set up space for indigent cases of flu.

True to his word, Harold Hill sold this quarantine with more vigor and determination than he’d ever pushed anything in his life, including the Think System. As a showman, he instinctively grasped that it wasn’t just the disease itself that was a threat, but also what it did to the tenuous social fabric as people succumbed to fear and panic. The emotional toll could be just as grueling as the physical toll, and he had to avoid this pitfall by bolstering morale in a way that both encouraged good sense and kept the social glue together.

And so, with the full and enthusiastic backing of Marian, City Hall, and the state of Iowa itself, Harold prevailed. He sold the River City-ziens hope, as well as truth. He sold them all on the notion that no matter how bad the flu was now, and no matter how much they had to sacrifice to stop it, things would eventually get better. In the meantime, they could best use their sudden abundance of free time to make plans for the future. And the townspeople believed him just as eagerly and trustingly as they had when he’d promised them the finest boys’ band in the region. Of course, there would always be those who grumbled and dissented, but they had become such an insignificant minority that they were compelled to concede, if grudgingly, to the new legal and social ordinances put in place for their own safekeeping.

After the disastrous initial misstep, reason and sense ultimately prevailed. Along with everyone else in River City, Marian and Harold kept as close to home as possible for the rest of that autumn, taught their children, and kept each other’s spirits up. Days of the week became irrelevant and difficult to keep track of – even Sundays weren’t a reliable reorienting compass to mark the passing of time, as the churches were closed. While the librarian had initially insisted on upholding some kind of normalcy as to their daily activities, she couldn’t help slackening in both her routines and fashion choices: she got completely used to spending her days in comfortable lingerie gowns and loose half-chignons, to the point it took her awhile to readjust to the strange stiffness of corsets and the tightness of putting her hair all the way up once she had to dress properly again. While Harold insisted on shaving each morning, he eventually stopped donning ties of any kind, went around with his collar undone, and let his curls fall where they would instead of slicking them into place. The twins, for their part, demonstrated an admirable mental toughness throughout this ordeal despite their young age, and the music professor and librarian were tremendously proud of their daughters’ resilience.

XXX

As Spanish flu cases leveled off and began to dwindle in early November, the ban on public meetings was lifted on November 11, 1918. However, out of an abundance of caution, the schools, library, and emporium remained closed until January 6, 1919. While the Spanish flu continued to plague River City until summer, outbreaks were small and localized due to the town’s sustained vigilance. And the official death toll peaked at five.

However, these interventions were not enough to halt the spread of the disease entirely. Those who had attended the parade suffered more heavily, as did their immediate families. Jacey Squires died in mid-October, just before Mayor Shinn announced the cancellation of public meetings. Gracie Shinn lived, but her lungs were permanently weakened. She was able to marry, but could bear no children due to her physical delicacy.

Despite her early support of the Hills’ position, Mrs. Grubb’s husband insisted on their attending the parade out of his unswerving loyalty to the mayor. While they both wore masks, they ended up contracting the Spanish flu for their allegiance. And even though they both recovered, Mr. Grubb died of encephalitis eight years later – a not-uncommon complication that doctors traced back to those who’d survived the flu.

However, the disease did not discriminate between those who adhered to the new regulations, and those who had not. Marcellus and Ethel Washburn, who had taken precautions right away, were not spared. The whole family came down with the flu, including Teddy and Greg, though they all fully recovered. But Ethel was four months pregnant at the time, and her baby did not survive. While she went on to have a third son – Billy – two years later, she never forgot the sting of this loss, especially as it might have been avoided. Although Marian did not disclose her previous miscarriage, she comforted Ethel with such tact, insight, and understanding that Mrs. Washburn confessed just how deeply enraged she was by Mrs. Shinn’s initial skepticism. While Ethel would never wish this kind of pain on anyone, she couldn’t help feeling it was monstrously unfair that the mayor’s wife was allowed to keep Gracie despite her error, whereas she paid the piper despite her good sense. (Neither Ethel nor Marian had the heart to begrudge Mrs. Squires’ reformation, as with her husband’s untimely passing she’d suffered the worst loss of them all.)

After Jacey Squires’ death and Gracie Shinn’s close shave, both Mrs. Shinn and Mrs. Squires became vigorously and even virulently pro-mask, to the point where they harshly harangued those who refused to wear them. Mrs. Shinn even succeeded in her exhaustive take-no-prisoners campaign to disband the local chapter of the Anti-Mask League and essentially make the group illegal in River City. While Marian was very grateful for the key role they played in enacting mandatory mask-wearing in public, a citywide quarantine, and fines or arrests for those who refused to comply, she was also a bit irked by such eleventh-hour zealotry. The librarian supposed it was a natural side effect of having learned their lesson so well – they did indeed earn their fervor through hard experience – but she wished it hadn’t taken such terrible personal and peripheral losses for them to embrace a more scientific mindset. However, it was always the most recent converts to a cause that were the most fanatically devoted to seeing it through; while Marian had advocated precaution right from the start, she had never taken such a hard and unforgiving line back when these ladies were staunch skeptics.

But perhaps she should have. If she had known the terrible price that the deserving and undeserving alike would pay for the blindness and selfishness of the skeptical, she _would_ have. And to the librarian, this was the most infuriating and heartbreaking consequence of all: even the people who were prudent ended up suffering cruelly for the ignorance of the minority. One could wear a mask, quarantine, and do absolutely everything right – and still not be spared of pain and loss if one’s town did not intervene in a timely enough manner.

Despite this grave caveat, the Hill family came through the catastrophe surprisingly unscathed. But that was due to luck and constitution just as much as it could be attributed to caution and prudence. Harold’s profligate wanderlust, which had exposed him to a great deal of humanity in his travels, toughened his already robust immune system. He’d also gone through the Russian flu epidemic in 1888-1889, which lent him some immunity to the Spanish flu. While Marian was a toddler at the time and avoided contracting that particular contagion, she and the girls had gotten a mild flu concurrent with the first wave in March 1918, which in all likelihood spared them from the second, deadlier wave that struck in October.

Overseas, where the close quarters and meager conditions of trench warfare made it all but impossible to avoid the infected, both Winthrop Paroo and Tommy Djilas had to contend with the disease as best they could in their difficult circumstances. While Winthrop managed to miraculously evade coming down with the flu, Tommy was not so lucky. But he fully recovered from his malaise and lived to see his child that Zaneeta gave birth to in February 1919: a strong and healthy son named George Harold Djilas.

Zaneeta had named their son, as she exuberantly proclaimed after his birth, “for the two men who saved our city!” Though to her father’s minor irritation, the boy was ultimately called Harry. This was not done punitively or even purposely; it evolved due to the natural nicknaming that tends to occur when a child’s personality starts to emerge, and the little boy demonstrated the makings of a bold, vivacious, and gregarious character even as an infant. (Little did George Shinn know that he would eventually get his namesake, as the family was blessed with three more daughters over the course of the 1920s: Eulalie “Lally” Djilas, Thomasina “Tommie” Djilas, and Georgianna “Georgie” Djilas.) But the mayor graciously conceded that the music professor deserved this honor just a little more than he did, and proved to be the most indulgent and doting of grandfathers to his precious little Harry.

And because George Shinn did the right thing in the end, his political and business careers were saved. While there were some who would never completely forgive his lapse – Mr. Grubb remained on cordial terms with the man but never voted for him again – he served as the mayor of River City and the proprietor of the Pleez-All Billiard Parlor until he chose to retire from both public and commercial life in 1929 – coincidently, just a few months before the devastating stock market crash that ruined thousands and plunged the country into the long and dreadful Great Depression. Harold Hill wasn’t the only man who was uncannily skilled at timely exits.

Despite the devastation wreaked by both the Great War and the Spanish flu, the neck-bowed Hawkeyes of River City – as anvil salesman Charlie Cowell had so derisively deemed them – were bent but not broken. (The same unfortunately could not be said for Mr. Cowell, who endured permanent baldness from being tarred and feathered in Illinois but sadly did not survive the epidemic, as Fred Gallup shrewdly informed Harold and Marian during their next visit to Des Moines.) And so, after the disease finally waned in the summer of 1919, the River City-ziens continued to go about their lives with the same stoic but fierce determination they’d possessed before – but tempered with the strength that comes from surviving and the wisdom that comes from hard-won knowledge.

XXX

 _When the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed._  
_~Kitty O’Meara, March 16, 2020_


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